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Tag: Shirley Collins

“It’s been a sort of fairy story!” is how Shirley Collins describes her unexpected return to the spotlight with a studio album and live tour after 30 years of silence.

The singer and song collector was at the forefront of the so-called folk revival, releasing a string of well-received and influential albums in the 1960s and 1970s as a solo artist, and with Davy Graham (the seminal Folk Roots, New Routes), sister Dolly Collins, and the Albion Band. But the shock of her marriage break up to Fairport Convention and Albion Band’s Ashley Hutchings in the early 1980s led to dysphonia, and she effectively lost her singing voice.

But after 20 years of polite pestering David Tibet, of Current 93, managed to get Collins on stage in 2014, at London’s Union Chapel, and the (former) singer (and a hushed audience) discovered she could hold a tune after all!

“Then two filmmakers approached me at one of my talks about gypsies, and wanted to make a film about me, so this started up as well,” Shirley reports on her surprising return to the spotlight. “I guess people wanted to meet me before I died!” she laughs, before quickly adding: “No! I don’t mean that … but there seemed to be enough people out there that remembered me, and it all snowballed.”

Hence the home recording and release of Lodestar at the end of 2016 – via the ever excellent Domino label – and a run of hugely acclaimed live shows.

“I couldn’t tell you how, but it’s been such a surprise. I’m glad it happened, it’s lovely to sing again,” enthuses the 82-year-old. “Domino have been so supportive. They do help promote the album and support you, unlike some record labels that just put out a record and watch it slip away. They’ve all become such friends, I’m so happy to have made this at this point … I do feel so blessed by it all.”

After so long away from recording and singing (Collins says she didn’t even sing at home, in private), it was decided to record Lodestar in the comfort of the folk doyen’s own home in Lewes, Sussex. Pulling together a collection of English, American and Cajun songs from the 16th century to 1950s, highlights include ‘Death And The Lady’, which Collins initially recorded over 45 years ago on Love, Death And The Lady.

“Yes, that was recorded with my sister, Dolly, in nineteen-sixty-whenever-it-was. I always loved that song and I sang that at the Union Chapel, so it was my first song in public again. Of course the key had to be lowered. When it came to doing it Ian [Kearey, Lodestar’s producer] wrote a new arrangement – I love the slide guitar.

“I love Muddy Waters, I love the blues, and there was a point when it suddenly turned into a Muddy Waters song where I’ve spelt death – D.E.A.T.H.” she chuckles. I did that song at Rough Trade [store in London] for the record launch and I did ‘Death spelt … T.R.U.M.P! It got a great cheer! I shouldn’t do it to that song, it’s a bit of mischief … I love the song anyway. It felt so right with the slide guitar on it, it made it sound mysterious, but strong.”

Taking Lodestar out on tour, Collins has created a full show which sees her perform the album in its entirety, plus film shorts, Morris dancing, and guest musicians.

“We’ve had guests like Graham Coxon – it’s unbelievable. Here’s this guitarist from Blur, and he sings, and plays, so beautifully – who’d have thought he’d be so into folk music? When we visit Warwick Arts Centre [29 April 2017] we’ll have John Kirkpatrick [who] is just about my favourite singer, and Lisa Knapp – she’s a really gorgeous singer. At other shows, we’ve got Olivia Chaney, who is very good too, and others.”

In her time away from music, it would be wrong to suggest Collins was invisible. She published a memoir in 2004, America Over The Water, documenting her song collecting expedition with Alan Lomax; picked up an MBE for her Services To Music in 2007; curated a South Bank festival in 2008, and received a Good Tradition Award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards the same year; and created a series of spoken word-based shows exploring Gypsy singers, Bob Copper, music from Sussex, and her trip to the USA.

Now back as a bona fide ‘recording artiste’, she’s full of praise for many younger performers (such as Knapp, Chaney, Alasdair Roberts and others), but finds the current popular use of the term ‘folk’ to seemingly describe anyone with an acoustic guitar somewhat misleading.

“People who write their own stuff – that’s not traditional music. I have to say that I don’t find it very interesting, I know that sounds harsh, but it’s not traditional folk music.”

Perhaps ‘singer/songwriter’ would be a better term?

“Exactly!” she agrees swiftly. “I get these messages from Amazon, and there was one about Folk Singers and number one on the list was Adele! Adele!” she repeats, exasperated. “I do like her as a singer … but she is not folk music!

“So I have to put proper folk songs in front of people – that’s my challenge. Folk … it gives us our music, it’s not global, it’s not about making money. I don’t like globalisation – everything is the same everywhere. I want variety. I want choice. I hear these kids singing with American accents and that saddens me … everything becomes a blur to me. I like difference, I like distinctiveness, I like the fact [folk is] still surviving, it’s working class music … and I don’t care if it’s not working class people recording, but I work to be part of that.

“It’s music from the labouring classes provided by people who’ve kept it going, learning it off by heart and passing it down. That’s a great achievement – people who’ve been exploited by the wealthy providing this glorious music.”

She agrees that the rise of gloablisation and dominance of pop music would make a song collecting exercise like she embarked on in 1959 virtually pointless today.

“Big business has encroached on everything and everywhere. I don’t think I want to go there now. It was bad enough in 1959, but now? I wouldn’t feel safe – would you? America feels sad to me now. It was dangerous in 1959,” she recalls of her trip as an outsider in her mid-20s. “It was right on the cusp of the Civil Rights Movement and we were going to places like Mississippi State Penitentiary, where we recorded these work songs, and black communities, but we were always welcomed, we always felt welcomed by the old blues men and the true, old mountaineers. They wanted to meet us, they wanted to meet people from the old country. But we were held up at gunpoint – we stopped to take a photograph of a chain gang. There we had a gun pointed at us and we were told ‘get those wheels rolling!’”

Collins also recalls a run-in with an aggressive Kentucky Baptist who took offence to her short hair and clothes

“I had to run to escape,” she says. “There was something scary … but if we’d been there a year later, I might have ended up as a pile of bones in the Mississippi mud. There was this sense that people were watching … always watching …”

Dave Freak

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His first new material since 2012 album Seven Songs, HENRY SPARKS releases the aptly titled Latest Waxing, an EP of five acoustic tracks sung in his distinctive swallowed vocals style. Incorporating lines from Blake’s poem, the tumbling ‘While We Were Building Jerusalem’, accompanied by Catriona Bryce on cello, sings of striving for a better life while, enveloped by fiddles, ‘If She Falls’ is a hymnal-sounding song of love and devotion. Again accompanied by cello, ‘So Like A Child’ is a slow waltzer lament for things lost, giving way to the unrequited love themes of ‘The Cowboy Song’ which, despite the title and featuring Alan Cook on pedal steel, sound quintessentially English in a Lilac Time sort of way. Accompanied by just sparse acoustic guitar, the last number is the moody, dark and leafy folk of ‘Migrant’, a timely musing on the hopes and fears of refugee in transit. He waxes eloquently.http://henrysparksmusic.co.uk/

The idea of singing Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’ a capella, slowed down with handclaps and percussion is just so far out but that is what SAID THE MAIDEN have done on their debut EP, Of Maids And Mariners. It is just such a great idea and it works. The lead track is an up-tempo version of ‘The Soldier And The Maid’ showing off Hannah Elizabeth’s fiddle playing and after ‘Jolene’ comes the Davenports’ ‘Spring Tide Rising’ featuring Kathy Pilkinton’s whistle and Jess Distill’s shruti. The first two tracks were produced by Stu Hanna and the latter two were recorded live. Said The Maiden will be huge before too long.www.saidthemaiden.co.uk

In celebration of Record Store Day 2016 Topic release a unique double A-side vinyl single. On top is a version of Booker T’s ‘Green Onions’ by MARTIN SIMPSON, ANDY CUTTING and TOM WRIGHT. Cutting takes the lead with Wright drumming and playing guitar lead. There’s a bass in there, too, although there is no indication who might be playing it. Underneath is SIMPSON CUTTING KERR with a specially recorded version of ‘Willie Taylor’ with Simpson on lead vocal and banjo. There is a distinctly transatlantic feel about this variant with a chorus that isn’t heard in English versions. Hedy West claimed it as an Anglo-American ballad but everyone seems to agree with enjoying the fact that the heroine was rewarded rather than punished for her action.www.topicrecords.co.uk

In support of the same event Fledg’ling release the latest of their replica EPs. English Songs Volume 2 features SHIRLEY COLLINS accompanied by Robin Hall. ‘Dance To Your Daddy’ carries none of the baggage that the last fifty-something years have added to it and doesn’t sound anywhere near as naive as you might expect. The version of ‘The Sperm Fishery’ is different from that on False True Lovers – no banjo, which only appears on ‘The Foolish Boy’. That track, together with ‘My Bonny Miner Lad’ seems rather slight by modern standards and the chorus of ‘The Foolish Boy’ is rather silly but all four tracks were recorded with a simple dignity that sometimes seems lost these days. The inner sleeve includes a vintage photograph of Alan Lomax And The Ramblers.www.fledglingrecords.co.uk

Presenting the soundtrack to Rob Young’s ground-breaking survey of music making in the British Isles.

Universal Music Catalogue has now released Electric Eden, a new compilation, hand-picked by author and journalist Rob Young. The two disc set is designed to serve as a companion to Young’s highly acclaimed book Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music which was published by Faber & Faber in 2010.

Just as the book mapped out a native British musical voice that reflected the complex relationships between town and country, progress and nostalgia, radicalism and conservatism, so too does this compilation.

It’s a veritable connoisseur’s choice of folk music which collects together such diverse artists as Archie Fisher, Meic Stevens, Bill Fay, Comus, and Mick Softley, even David Bowie – alongside the more expected names such as Bert Jansch, Richard Thompson, John Martyn, The Incredible String Band and Nick Drake.

The two disc set is divided into an Acoustic Eden and an Electric Eden and comes with comprehensive, track-by-track notes by Rob Young.

Comments Rob young: ‘This compilation is designed to follow the flow from acoustic to electric folk in the late 60s and early 70s, a magical time in British music. I’ve tried to include a mixture of rarities, unheard versions, familiar names and unjustly neglected heroes and heroines. I’m particularly proud of including a rare original version of ‘A Sailor’s Life’ by Fairport Convention, literally the first time a rock drum kit was ever used on a traditional folk song. History in the making!’

CD1

ACOUSTIC EDEN

1. Peter Bellamy – ‘Oak, Ash and Thorn’

2. Traffic – ‘John Barleycorn Must Die’

3. Bert Jansch – ‘The Waggoner’s Lad’

4. Fairport Convention – ‘Stranger to Himself’

5. Archie Fisher – ‘Reynardine’

6. Bread, Love and Dreams – ‘Brother John’

7. Bill Fay – ‘Garden Song’

8. Water Into Wine Band – ‘Stranger in the World’

9. Tudor Lodge – ‘Willow Tree’

10. Comus – ‘Diana’

11. Meic Stevens – ‘Yorric’

12. Magic Carpet – ‘The Dream’

13. Sweeney’s Men – ‘The Pipe on the Hob’

14. Tim Hart & Maddy Prior – ‘False Knight on the Road’

15. Dr Strangely Strange – ‘Dark-Haired Lady’

16. Albion Country Band – ‘I Was a Young Man’

17. COB – ‘Music of the Ages’

18. Roger Nicholson – ‘The Carman’s Whistle’

19. Bridget St John – ‘Fly High’

20. John Martyn – ‘She Moves Through the Fair’

CD 2

ELECTRIC ALBION

1. Richard Thompson – ‘Roll over Vaughn Williams’

2. Steeleye Span – ‘The Lark in the Morning’

3. Unicorn – ‘Country Road’

4. Fairport Convention – ‘A Sailor’s Life’

5. Trees – ‘Glasgerion’

6. Fotheringay – ‘Gypsy Davey’

7. David Bowie – ‘Black Country Rock’

8. John Martyn – ‘Glistening Glyndebourne’

9. Mike Cooper – ‘Paper and Smoke’

10. Shelagh McDonald – ‘Mirage’

11. Spirogyra – ‘Disraeli’s Problem’

12. Mick Softley – ‘Time Machine’

13. Shirley Collins & The Albion Country Band – ‘Murder of Maria Marten’

14. Pentangle – ‘Jack Orion’

15. Incredible String Band – ‘Painted Chariot’

16. Nick Drake – ‘Voices’

We have set up a new UK & U.S Storefront for brand new CD/Vinyl/Download releases recently featured together with a search facility for older stuff. The link for the folking store is:https://folking.com/folking-store/Click to order featured CD/ Vinyl/Download/Book/DVD

Buying through Amazon on folking.com helps us to recover a small part of our running costs, so please order anything you need as every little purchase helps us.